Cats in Space!

Prologue

The Earth was invented by Mr Earth in 1982. On the first day he created tarmac, and on the second perms and shoulder pads. By the sixth day he’d created Duran Duran and on the seventh he was knackered following a kinky evening with Simon Le Bon.

He believed his greatest achievement was, not the internet or social media, but in fact hipsters. They were the next evolutionary step for humans, paving the way for a brighter future of beards, cats, and food served on bathroom tiles.

Unknown to humans, Mr Earth went on to create other solar systems, one of which contained a planet solely for cats, called Planet Meow.

Earth

‘You want to send your cat into space?’ they’d asked him.

Jay understood how crazy it seemed, but it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now he was left with no job, no cat, and no money for craft ales.

It had all started with the lamb chop.

A guy at work sent a lamb chop into space using a giant balloon with a tracking device and a camera. Nobody ever thought it would work, but it did. The camera had captured all of it, and the video subsequently went viral, that beautiful blue glow framing the Earth behind the lamb chop. Everyone was astounded, and Jay started to wonder – what else can you do that with?

Jay loved his cat, Mr Tiddles, but he was so needy. He thought this might help burst Mr Tiddles out of his comfort zone. Plus, the guys at work would think he was a legend if he managed to pull this off. Mr Tiddles would be famous. It’d be awesome all round.Jay had bought a cat-sized spacesuit from eBay for Mr Tiddles and ordered the hugest balloon he could find. He launched with the help of a few friends, and a few hours later set about tracking the landing. He found the camera and GPS, but no Mr Tiddles.

Everyone said he was dead. He watched the video countless times; curvature of the Earth glowed behind Mr Tiddles, but then it cut off. No more film, and no Mr Tiddles.

Jay busied himself with his beard, perfectly grooming it to look as if he’d put no effort in at all. Mr Tiddles’ litter tray was still in the laundry room, he just couldn’t get rid of it. Call it a hunch but somehow he just didn’t think Mr Tiddles was dead. He should never have sent him into space. Now he had to watch Netflix alone. Eat pulled pork alone. Puthis vinyl’s into plastic sleeves in alphabetical order alone. Mr Tiddles had seemed to love watching him do that.

Planet Meow

‘Mr Tiddles, I believe?’ the fluffy white cat, named Fluffy, asked.

‘Yes,’ he replied, glancing at the other cats sitting the large oval table. ‘Erm, where am I?’

Fluffy put on some black thick-rimmed glasses and turned on his laptop. ‘Boardroom B, in the Whiskas building, Planet Meow.’ Fluffy added. ‘Welcome to our group.’

Memories were starting to come back to Mr Tiddles, the long drive out to the field in the middle of nowhere, the straps, the balloon, the camera. ‘I remember wearing a horrible silver suit with a plastic thing on my head.’ He shook out his fur. That bastard had actually sent him into space.

‘You were rescued by the rangers,’ Fluffy said. ‘You’re among friends now, Mr Tiddles. You see, we’re all victims of hipster abuse here.’

‘Hipster abuse?’

‘Yes. We were all tied to balloons by our hipster owners and sent into the space.’

‘All of you?’ Mr Tiddles stared around at the group of cats. They nodded.

‘There’s many more too,’ Fluffy said, ‘But we’re working on a plan to get to the root cause and stop this horrendous act. The rescue teams continue to excel at the rescuing part, but we want to try and stop it all together, once and for all.’

The other cats meowed in support.

‘We’re called Cats Under No Threat, because we believe that no cat should ever have to live under threat of being put in a spacesuit, tied to a giant balloon and sent into space just so that their owners can look cool.’

‘Here, here!’ cheered the other cats.

‘You’ve joined us at an exciting time, Mr Tiddles. We were just about to start phase one of our plan.’

Mr Tiddles licked his lips eagerly. He wanted revenge on that bastard.

‘We’ve got cats on the Earth now, masquerading as humans. They infiltrated the governments, the shops, the schools!’

The cats jumped up on the table, meowing excitably.

‘Okay, settle down.’ Fluffy smiled. The cats composed themselves and sat down. ‘The first step was to take away the very core of what the hipsters need to survive.’

Earth

It was a Sunday afternoon but it felt like morning to Jay. Hungover, he managed to make himself look almost presentable in skinny jeans, a checked shirt and a beanie hat, and headed out to his local café. He looked up and down the eerily empty street. Everything looked closed. On the door of the cafe was a handwritten note which read ‘closed due to flat white crisis.’ Jay got out his phone. Sure enough #flatwhitecrisis was trending on Twitter.

He quickly skimmed through: ‘Café’s have shut down all over UK following unexplained spontaneous combustion caused by drinking flat white’s. Sources say they’re not quite sure if it’s just flat white’s other coffee’s too, so avoid caffeine-based drinks altogether until further notice.’

Jay’s face contorted into a scream but no sound came out. In horror, he ran back to his flat and got back into bed, pulled the duvet over his head, and waited for the nightmare to be over.

He woke a few hours later and stared at his pale face and bloodshot eyes in the mirror. This is what it looked like to go one morning without coffee. Even as a child his babycino’s contained more coffee than the average latte.

He checked his phone. There was a message from his friend Sam which simply said. ‘No coffee? Fuck me.’ If they couldn’t have coffee, Jay thought, it would have to be beer instead.

Jay and Sam went to the new place down the road called Granola & Crapola. There you could eat deconstructed Monster Munch, lick granola off a chopping board, and drink craft ales through a Curly Wurly. They sat down on the chunks of wood for seats, accompanied by a table which was too small to fit anything on.

‘Mate, we’ll be alright once we get these down us,’ Jay said, taking the first big gulp of his beer. He ate the Curly Wurly separately, he had no time for food matching today.

‘Hope so,’ Sam said wearily, and started gulping the beer.

Jay felt the bubbles rising from his gut and unexpectedly burped loudly. ‘Oh, God.’ He put his hand to his stomach but continued drinking.

Sam had nearly finished his. Jay gulped faster to catch up.

‘Christ, I needed that,’ Jay said, putting down his glass. He wiped his beard in case he had any beer or Curly Wurly left in it. He burped again, but this time was a little bit sick in his mouth. He swallowed, grimacing.

Sam burped too and clutched his mouth, his eyes wide. Beery vomit started seeping out through his hands. Jay was about to ask if he was alright, but instead a trail of projectile vomit burst from him across the tiny table. Vomit exploded from Sam’s hands and he fell to his knees, puking on the open floor boards. Jay fell off his chair mid-puke, splashing chunky ale vomit over the exposed brickwork. He fell on top of Sam, the two men heaving in a pile, Jay puking up into Sam’s beard.

As Jay lay panting on his side, his gaze fell on the guy behind the bar. He wasn’t rushing to help them, in fact he almost had a smirk on his face. Then he disappeared, in a flash. A few seconds later, a ginger and brown cat emerged from behind the bar. Jay blinked but his vision blurred and he heaved again. Had he just seen that man turn into a cat? He must be delirious.

Planet Meow

‘Aha, phase two was a success!’ Fluffy told Mr Tiddles. ‘#alepuking is trending on Twitter. All of Earth’s hipster bars have been infiltrated. With no coffee and no ale the hipsters won’t be able to survive more than a week.’

Mr Tiddles looked at the screen as they scrolled through pictures of hipsters covered in vomit. He couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. He wouldn’t tell Fluffy or any of the others that of course. They’d been working on this plan for years. Hundreds of cats were send to Earth, placed into society to blend in like ‘normal’ humans. Fluffy had told him some of the cats originally created for Planet Meow were experimented on – they could in fact shapeshift between cats and humans. This had made for incredibly moody selfish humans, but luckily this helped them blend in as hipsters.

Mr Tiddles was starting to miss humans, with their silly voices and their awkward two-legged walks. He missed a good stroke, especially by Jay. Who else would give him pulled pork and soy milk? The hipsters didn’t deserve all this. Yes, they’d sent them into space with giant balloons, but maybe that was just their weird way of showing affection, like that time he decapitated that bird for Jay, who’d made him eat Tesco Value cat food for a week after.

Earth

Jay lay in bed, his face gaunt with chunks of vomit still in his beard. There was no coffee, no beer and the street outside looked like 4am on a Sunday morning: piles of vomit everywhere and the odd passed out hipster shivering in the cold. His mum had offered to bring round some Nescafe but he’d nearly puked again just at the thought.

Why were they being punished like this, he wondered. He thought back to the man in the bar. Was this something to do with cats? Oh, he missed Mr Tiddles! He wished he could tell him how sorry he was. He wondered how he could ever make it up to him. But then, he had an idea. An idea which would solve the problem of coffee and beer, and cats. He dragged himself out of bed, grabbed his phone and called Sam.

‘Sam, I might be going crazy here, but I think maybe the cats are pissed off.’

‘What?’

‘I’ve got an idea,’ Jay said, trying to pull on his jeans, tucking the phone under his chin. ‘We’ve been working in bars and café’s for ages now, isn’t it about time we started our own?’

‘Isn’t this a conversation for another time?’

‘No,’ Jay pressed. ‘I think we should set up a cat café. We could have coffee – only the best single orgin ground by the fingers of virgins – and expensive beers, and cakes made out of vegetables served on cake stands made out of crap vinyls. And most importantly, cats! Loads and loads of cats!’

The line was quiet.

‘Well, Sam?’ Jay asked.

‘Mate…’ Sam paused. ‘It’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. But how will we afford all this?’

The cats crowded around Mr Tiddles who was sitting at the laptop, staring at Twitter. #catcafe was trending. They’d just hit 1 million pounds for what they hoped would be one cat café, which was now likely to be several. The cats were gobsmacked.

Mr Tiddles looked around the room. ‘I don’t know about you guys, but I think that balloon flight was actually pretty fun.’

The cats purred in agreement.

Fluffy sighed. ‘I guess they’re not all bad, these hipsters.’​Mr Tiddles looked at the screen again, at the picture of Jay and Sam. Under it read, ‘Mr Tiddles, if you’re out there, please forgive me. I promise I’ll never tie you to a giant balloon and send you in to space again. Please come back. Love, Jay.’

Story written by Mel Ciavucco and performed (as pictured, dressed as a hipster) at Talking Tales. Video/audio coming soon!

I'd like to thank Chris Fielden and Nikesh Shukla for sending meat into space (check out the amazing videos below!) and to the eagerly awaited Bristol Cat Cafe, all of whom inspired me to write this story.